“Can you manage it?” asked Roger.
It was Margaret’s job responsibilities that would be the hardest to rearrange. Margaret looked at Brad, who was waiting anxiously to see what she’d say.
“I can manage it,” she said, smiling at him. He hugged her.
“Well, I guess that settles it,” said Roger with a little smile.
He held out a small white envelope to Livvy.
“Thanks as usual.”
Although she took the envelope and put the money in her bag, it didn’t feel like she’d been much help today, but she didn’t want to say that in front of Brad and she needed the money.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
As Roger opened the door, Margaret said, “We’ll let you know our plans.”
“That sounds good,” Livvy said, as she turned around and took in the three of them, standing together, their arms around each other’s waists. A wistful smile came to her lips
“If I don’t see you before you leave, have a safe trip.”
“Will do,” said Roger.
As the door closed and she turned to face the dark street, she sensed that relocation would be a good thing for Brad–the sooner the better. Somehow, L.A. didn’t seem like the place to be right now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
FOR ONCE, LIVVY had slept late. No phones, no landlords, no visitors. The sun was high and the bedroom was getting warm when she finally woke up. Despite the bump on the back of her head and the bruise on her stomach, she had slept like a rock. Nacho still wasn’t back but sometimes he would disappear for a couple of days. She knew other people in the building fed him and that it was too soon to worry but she worried anyway.
As she lay there, her mind roamed over the bizarre events of the last few days. Brad had accidentally gone to the middleworld. She had seen a kachina manifest in the real world, only to then be rescued by that kachina in the underworld. And, of course, Indra had somehow died. Although she knew she hadn’t been responsible for any of it, it was all beginning to leave her with a guilty feeling. Maybe there was something she could have done. But what, especially when it came to Tiamat? Nothing seemed right anymore and everything seemed to be changing.
She took her phone from the nightstand and propped another pillow behind her head. After she texted Min, who texted right back, she looked at her news feeds.
“Shamans Outed for Rash of Sicknesses,” read one article title.
“Shamans Blamed for Epidemic,” said another.
She sat up and started scanning through the regular news feeds. There was the national economic and political news, foreign affairs and arts, but all of the local news seemed to be about the sudden increase in emergency room traffic. In one news video, the anchor posed a question.
“Are shamans spreading disease in your neighborhood?”
“What?” said Livvy out loud, not believing what she was hearing.
“That’s what reporter Alice Gaylord is reporting on this afternoon from downtown. Alice, what’s the word on the street?”
The screen flipped to a black female reporter somewhere in a Hispanic business district.
“The word on the street here is fear.”
She took a couple of steps over to a storefront.
“People in this neighborhood say that shamans are a real part of this community and that they are spreading disease.”
An older man was waiting for her at the door of his shoe repair business.
“This is Mr. Hernandez who is the owner of the Mr. Shoe repair shop. Mr. Hernandez,” she said turning to him, “can you tell me why you think shamans are causing what is essentially an epidemic.”
She leaned the microphone over to him. Mr. Hernandez held his hands in front of him as though he were an usher at church and nodded.
“The shamans are real,” he said with a Hispanic accent. “Las curanderas, they are here. Many people in this neighborhood can’t afford to go to the doctor so they call the curandera. The curandera comes to your house and they can heal your sickness if you pay them.”
“Oh, please,” said Livvy.
“Well that doesn’t sound too bad,” said Alice, playing along.
“It’s not,” agreed Hernandez. “It’s not until they want you to be sick. There are evil curanderas, very bad, very powerful. If they want you sick, you will be sick.”
“I see,” said Alice, glancing at the camera. “And you think that’s happening in this neighborhood.”
“I seen it with my own eyes,” he confirmed, nodding. “My cousin called a curandera and then got real sick and nearly died. Then it happened to my neighbor. You ask anybody here,” he gestured to the street. “Everybody knows somebody who’s been real sick lately.”
“And you think that the evil shamans are responsible?”
“It always happens after they visit,” he insisted.
“Of course it does,” Livvy protested. “Because they’re sick to begin with!”
But then she thought of Brad, who hadn’t particularly been ill but had been worse off after her visit.
The camera swung over to a trio of middle-aged women who stood side by side. Alice leaned over and held the microphone to them as a group.
“These ladies think that the shamans are the carriers of an infection,” said Alice. “Can you tell me again what you saw?”
The women on the sides looked at the one in the middle, who spoke up immediately.
“Yes, my best friend called a curandera and she came while I was there. She had this little guinea pig and she killed it, right in front of us,” the two other women shook their heads and clucked. “Oh how it squealed! And then she looked at its insides, you know, the guts, and told my friend that she had a stomach sickness. Then she took the dead guinea pig and she rubbed it all over my friends head and arms and stomach, and told her not to drink any alcohol.”
Livvy shook her head. What the woman had described was actually a traditional shamanic ritual, one rarely performed these days, especially in large urban centers, but this woman had taken all the lurid details out of context. As she squirmed under the covers, Livvy realized she was sweating and threw them off.
“And what happened to your friend?” asked Alice.
“She’s in the hospital now,” said the woman on the far side. “She’s very sick now.”
“It was the curandera,” said the one closest to Alice. “She made her sick.”
Alice turned to the camera.
“At this time, hospitals are not reporting any pattern to the ailments that people are experiencing. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for a flu or other type of bacterial or viral infection. The only common factor may be the shamans.” She paused for dramatic effect. “This is Alice Gaylord, reporting on the shaman phenomenon that seems to be sweeping the downtown area.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AS LIVVY CLIMBED the stairs in the hospital, she knew she’d have to avoid the nurse who’d had her escorted out before. She opened the door to the third floor just a crack and scanned around. There wasn’t anybody in the hallway. Quickly, she stepped out and trotted softly down to Room 349.
She had been surprised to get another call from Diana, especially so soon. Mitch had lapsed back into a coma the next morning and the doctors were taking a wait-and-see attitude which neither Diana nor Saul cared for.
Livvy rapped quietly on the room door, as she glanced at the hallway in back of her. Saul opened it, saw who it was, and pulled it open for her to pass through. He also took a glance at the hallway, satisfied.
Before Livvy knew it, Diana was hugging her. She either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care about the tiny spark between them. Livvy guessed it was the former. She looked even more haggard than the last time.
“Oh thank you dear,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”
“Yes,” said Saul, behind her. “Thanks.”
Diana led her over to Mitch. He looked much as he had when Livvy had first seen him, possibly worse.
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br /> “The doctors don’t have an explanation for why he’s gone back into a coma,” Diana said. “Of course, they couldn’t explain how he’d come out of it in the first place.”
Livvy looked at the heart rate and blood pressure monitors. His pulse was thready and his last few blood pressure readings had been very low.
“The nurse said they’d test him for brain activity tomorrow,” said Saul, on the other side of the bed. “I don’t know what happens if they don’t see any.”
Livvy knew. If the patient didn’t have a medical directive, it’d be up to the family to decide whether or not to keep him on life support. As she gazed down at his face, she recalled the first healing. He hadn’t seemed too anxious to return to the real world, although she had never asked him why. He seemed set on staying in the multiverse until she’d told him he wasn’t dead. Now, she had to wonder if he’d made up his mind not to come back. If that were the case, there was no point in trying to force him. They’d all end up right back in this situation.
She looked at Diana and then Saul and decided to say it.
“I don’t think he wants to come back.”
“What?” said Diana. “How can you know that? You just got here.”
“He didn’t want to come back last time, but he didn’t want to die either,” said Livvy, looking at his face again. “I think it’s possible that he may have decided…not to come back at all this time.”
“Nonsense,” said Saul. “He’s never said anything like that.”
“No,” said Diana. “Never.” She looked down at Mitch and then back at Livvy. “Why didn’t you tell us this last time?”
Livvy sighed.
“It’s not really anybody else’s business but his. A shaman might see a lot of things on the other side.”
She let it rest at that. The silence of shamans on matters of their clients in the multiverse was something akin to patient doctor privilege.
“Can’t you at least try?” asked Diana.
When they had called her, they had probably thought it would be a slam dunk. Call the shaman and bring Mitch back, like last time. Unfortunately, it was never that easy. Especially with the strange things going on in the multiverse right now. Looking at his vitals, though, and having met him in the multiverse, Livvy already knew it would almost certainly be pointless. Even so, she was bringing them bad news and she hated to do that.
“Just try,” said Saul.
“Please,” implored Diana. She put a hand on Livvy’s arm.
Livvy finally looked at her. She had meant to tell her that it’d be useless, a waste of time, and a waste of money. With Tiamat roaming around it wasn’t worth the risk, either. But the look on Diana’s face wasn’t just exhausted. Her thin smile fell miserably short of masking the desperation and fear beneath the surface.
“All right, I’ll try,” Livvy heard herself say.
As Diana exhaled with relief, Livvy continued.
“Just be aware that it’s different now and there’s only so much that can be done on the other side once they’ve gone too far.”
“I understand,” said Diana, but Livvy heard the hope in the woman’s voice and knew that she did not understand.
Livvy settled into the chair, leaned her head against her sage pillow, and put on the goggles.
In no time, Livvy arrived in the underworld. She rolled to her feet but stayed close to the fountain in case she needed to dive right back in and escape to the middleworld. She looked in every direction, knowing that if Tiamat were near she wouldn’t need to look for her, she’d feel her.
The plaza was a ruin. Giant blocks that had tumbled from the surrounding buildings lay scattered all around it. A gusty wind was blowing leaves and small bits of trash until they came to rest on debris heaps, piling up like a snowdrift. The place looked deserted.
The clouds weren’t moving, which might be a bad sign. It either meant that Mitch wasn’t here or that she was nearly on top of him.
She ventured out into the plaza, pulling her jacket collar up around her neck. She’d never felt so cold in the underworld. Each time seemed to get colder.
“Mitch!” she yelled, her hands cupped around her mouth, hoping to gain enough volume to overcome the wind. “Mitch, are you there?”
“Yeah,” said a voice behind her. “Right here.”
She whirled around in time for her peripheral vision to tell her that something was moving toward her head. As she ducked, she backed up.
Mitch stood there, in his hospital gown, hefting a chunk of concrete in his hand. The wind caused the gown to flap around but he ignored it, smiling at her.
“Mitch,” said Livvy, straightening up. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” he yelled. “I told you last time I didn’t want to go back.”
He advanced on her and swung the concrete in a wide arc but Livvy simply caught his wrist in mid-air and held it there. No client was a match for a shaman in the underworld.
“Drop it, Mitch. You don’t need it. If you don’t want to go back, then that’s the way it’ll be.”
“Oh right. Just like last time.”
“You didn’t really want to stay last time,” she said, squeezing his wrist. “You hesitated.”
“Like hell,” he said, dropping the concrete.
Livvy let him go and he was rubbing his wrist when, without warning, the ground rumbled and a piercing screech filled the air. Mitch teetered wildly, trying to keep his balance. Livvy crouched low and looked in every direction, trying to figure out where Tiamat was. She checked the location of the fountain. It was right behind her, only two steps away.
“Mitch–” she was saying as she turned back but he was lunging toward her and in seconds they tangled up and were rolling on the ground.
“Stop it,” he screamed. Another screech filled the air, closer and louder this time. The ground thudded beneath them. “Stop it!”
She grabbed his shoulders.
“Mitch, it’s not me! I’m not doing this!” The ground thudded again. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Ha!” he said with a wild look in his eyes. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Mitch!” she yelled, easily pushing him off. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
A long shadow covered them and Mitch looked up. Tiamat’s head had blotted out the sun and she had paused. He squinted at the dark backlit shape.
“What is that?” he asked, not sounding scared enough, not understanding what was about to happen.
Tiamat turned toward them and screeched. Mitch tumbled away from Livvy and the ground thudded. Livvy rolled into a kneeling position and stayed on all fours to keep her balance.
“Mitch, we have to leave now!” she yelled. He looked at her confused. She pointed to the fountain. “Now!”
The ground thudded repeatedly as Tiamat moved more quickly, closing the distance faster than Livvy thought possible for such a leviathan. Mitch froze, mesmerized by her growing enormity. Tiamat would be on them in seconds.
“We have to go,” she yelled as she reached for his arm but he squirmed away at the last second.
“No!” he yelled, but Livvy couldn’t hear him.
The buildings in the vicinity started to tremble, as rubble began to rain down. The glass was gone, shattered long ago. Livvy wanted to yell to Mitch but she knew he’d never hear her. As she started to crawl toward him, a circle of light appeared between them. Livvy hurled herself backward and hit the edge of the fountain.
Tiamat screamed, raising her open beak to the sky, as her massive tail lashed the buildings to either side.
“Mitch!” Livvy yelled.
He had managed to get up but was lurching away from her, away from the fountain. As Livvy watched in horror, Tiamat swiftly curved her long neck and lowered her head. Mitch never even saw her as he ran directly beneath the descending jaws. She snapped them shut on his torso, cutting him in half.
Livvy tipped backwards into the fountain, closing her e
yes to the horrific sight, willing it out of her vision, as she heard the jaws snap again.
In the real world, a high-pitched whine replaced the sound of crunching bones. Livvy took off her goggles and saw Diana and Saul looking frantically at the monitors. Mitch’s heart rate had flatlined and the emergency klaxon was sounding.
The door burst open and two nurses moved quickly to the bedside as Diana and Saul stepped back. Livvy got up and watched from near the chair, knowing what the nurses were seeing. Mitch was dead.
As one of the nurses turned off the alarm, the other checked for a pulse at his wrist and then his jugular. The first nurse looked at the intravenous drip and the peripheral insertion line.
“There’s no morphine?” she asked the first nurse.
“No, we were still waiting for doctor’s orders.”
The nurses had been expecting Mitch to die, had been waiting for the morphine. They had rushed in but they already knew that resuscitation wasn’t an option.
Livvy watched them in a daze. Her client was dead–the man who, not one minute ago, had been talking to her in the multiverse, struggling with her, then screaming…she closed her eyes against those last moments.
“Is he…” asked Diana, unable to finish the question.
The second nurse turned to her.
“There’s no pulse,” she said, quietly.
Livvy opened her eyes to see the first nurse look at her watch and note the time. She turned the monitors off and the room was quiet.
“Oh no, no, no,” Diana whispered as Saul came around and took her by the shoulders.
She turned to him and they hugged, both of them crying uncontrollably. Livvy looked away and pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the sob that was rising. One of the nurses left as the other waited patiently. She glanced at Livvy but didn’t take much notice.
Finally, Diana and Saul quieted down and Diana stroked Mitch’s hand. The nurse passed her the tissue box and she took one, passing it to Saul. Then, as if he remembered that they weren’t alone in the room, Saul turned to Livvy.
Shaman, Healer, Heretic (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman) Page 12